The asor ( he, עָשׂוֹר ''ʿasor''; from עשר ''eśer'', meaning "ten") was a

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

"of ten strings" mentioned in the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

. There is little agreement on what sort of instrument it was or to what instruments it had similarities.

Biblical references

The word occurs only three times in the Bible, and has not been traced elsewhere. In

Psalm The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

33:2 the reference is to "

kinnor Kinnor ( he, ''kīnnōr'') is an ancient Israelite musical instrument in the yoke lutes family, the first one to be mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Its exact identification is unclear, but in the modern day it is generally translated as "harp ...

, nebel and asor" ( he, הוֹדוּ לַיהוָה בְּכִנּוֹר; בְּנֵבֶל עָשׂוֹר, זַמְּרוּ-לוֹ׃); in Psalm 92:3, to "nebel and asor"; in Psalm 144 to "nebel-asor". In the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...

''asor'' is translated "an instrument of ten strings", with a marginal note "omit" applied to "instrument". In the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...

, the word being derived from a root signifying "ten", the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

is ''ἐν δεκαχορδῷ'' or ''ψαλτήριον δεκάχορδον'', in the

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

''in decachordo psalterio''. Each time the word asor is used it follows the word ''nebel'', and probably merely indicates a variant of the nebel, having ten strings instead of the customary twelve assigned to it by

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...

. cites ''

Antiquities Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Artifacts from earlier periods such as the Meso ...

'', vii. 12. 3.

Bibliography

Hermann Mendel Hermann Mendel (6 August 1834 – 26 October 1876) was a German musicologist. He founded the ''Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon'', which was published in Berlin from 1870 on and was further edited by August Reissmann (1825-1903) after Mendel's ...

and August Reissmann, ''Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon'', vol. 1 (Berlin, 1881) * Sir

John Stainer Sir John Stainer (6 June 1840 – 31 March 1901) was an English composer and organist whose music, though seldom performed today (with the exception of ''The Crucifixion'', still heard at Passiontide in some churches of the Anglican Communi ...

, ''The Music of the Bible'', * Forkel, ''Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik'', vol.1 (Leipzig, 1788).

Notes

References

;Attribution * String instruments Lost and extinct musical instruments Ancient Israel and Judah Israeli musical instruments Ancient Hebrew musical instruments {{string-instrument-stub he:כלי נגינה במקרא#נבל

Biblical references

Bibliography

See also

Notes

References